It's been almost two years since I found this forum and shortly afterwards broke up with manipulative, verbally abusive XABF.
It's been almost a year since he died of colon cancer.
Since then I've been feeling that I was doing rather well with my recovery, but periodically I still receive these reminders that I've got a ways to go yet.
The latest reminder has been in the form of someone I believed to be a friend, from Al-Anon. She was a good friend, at least for awhile, but in the last few months I have felt that she has become jealous of the times I go out to do things that don't involve her.
I have a job, and it's a good one. Time-consuming, and the commute is about an hour, but I like my job. It's good to me, it pays well, and I like the people I work with. (And I've been winning over the people who haven't liked me so much, too, so it's even getting better lately!)
I have a boyfriend, and I am pretty sure I picked a good one this time. He's respectful of my boundaries and politely reinforces his own, he appreciates the little things I do for him and enjoys doing little things of his own for me, and he understands the values of sharing happiness and frustrations by just talking about it without any requirement of the person listening to take ownership of any of the other's feelings or action items. We are separate people, with separate lives, and yet we have a shared experience at the same time.
And then my intentions in my life at that point are to have some time to myself, and some time with friends, in a nice healthy balance that makes me happy.
The problem is, this "friend" hasn't been seeing things this way. In recent months she has started trying to push herself into my life. I'll mention I'm going to spend time with someone else I recently met, she'll make it be known that she wants to meet this person too. I'll say I have to run errands at Target and she'll announce that she had to run errands too at Kohl's but she'll "make a sacrifice" and accompany me to Target instead. I'll state that I filled out a questionnaire to potentially volunteer at the local women's shelter and she'll demand I tell her the information as soon as they return my call so that we can do it together.
She'll make comments about how we used to spend the entire day together but that she's settling for a partial day in the hope that we can go back to our full day schedule later, and no amount of arguing will get her to even acknowledge that the entire-day-together only happens if we see each other approximately once a month and if she insists on doing things every Saturday then it can't be the whole day. Attempts to talk to her about how I feel result in her interrupting me (Ever try to talk a locomotive into not running you over?), and any attempt to point out that she interrupted me yields an angry, "NO,
I am the one talking."
This is not what the friendship used to be, but after several months of watching it degenerate it has become clear to me that this is what it is, and so I started to wonder if I should remain.
The last straw happened exactly one week ago. She has a habit of grabbing her car key and locking herself out of the house, since she won't keep the house key with her car key. (She claims it will break the car key if she keeps any other keys with it, and as a result they must remain separate at all times). Her next door neighbor will no longer permit her to climb in through their house, and her neighbor across the street is reaching the point where he won't loan her his ladder anymore, so she asked me to keep her house key and then if she locked herself out we could meet somewhere.
I pointed out that I work an hour away from where she lives, and her reply was, "That's too far for me to drive!" I mentioned that I had a busy life, and that keeping a copy of her car key was not a responsibility that should be mine, and she angrily told me, "I thought you'd help me out, because you're a good friend, but I guess you're not as good a friend as I thought, so if you don't want to help me, FINE!" and hung up.
An hour later she left me a voicemail, sweet as can be, "StarCat, just trying to talk to you, give me a call! Love you!" I didn't answer, and didn't call back. I needed some time to think.
The next day (Friday) I got a voicemail full of angry manipulation, just like XABF used to do, full of "I'm sorry, BUT" statements and guilt trips about how she'd die if she fell off the ladder. I did not answer, because it was not at the point where I could say what I meant without being mean.
Saturday I got another voicemail, stating that she should have realized she didn't do anything wrong, that clearly there was something going on with me, that she'd pray for me and please call her back when I was feeling better.
I felt that I owed her some sort of an answer, so Saturday night I drafted a nice letter to read to her the next day over her voicemail at a time when I knew she wouldn't be home. I told her that the key was only a small part of things, that I felt intimidated when she would insist on events and times she wanted us to spend together, that I had started feeling like she did not respect when I said "No" and that her hanging up on me on Thursday had reinforced that, and that I needed to take a time-out in our relationship to think things through because I was feeling rather overwhelmed, so please don't contact me for awhile.
Sunday after she got out of her event I got two voicemails around 2pm, one around 4pm, and then another two around 4:30pm. They were full of guilt tripping manipulation, and such statements as, "Everyone has their faults. You always act like you're smarter than me, but I let it go, because I figure that's just how you are!" In the span of those voicemails she basically called me shallow, petty, a snob, childish and all sorts of other insults wrapped up in nice words and sandwiched between phrases like "I consider you a good friend" and "Let's talk together like two adults."
Monday I got another one (I think it was one, it may have been several strung together), actually asking me why I felt the way I did. Stupidly, Monday night I sent her an email in answer, detailing some specific examples of situations where I did not feel my boundaries were respected. I also told her that I did not appreciate the repeat dialing on Sunday, due to my experiences with XABF, and that I hoped she'd respect that as I know she has been on the receiving end of the same behavior.
I should not have sent that email, but I actually thought it would change things, as her voicemail had sounded sincere. But I still fall for those tricks, I suppose.
Tuesday she called and left two more voicemails before I blocked both her numbers. She called me 6 more times after that, trying to leave another voicemail, and then sent me an email (full of excuses for the multiple phone calls) and 3 text messages (manipulative attempts at justification as well). I haven't listened to the voicemails, I was going to delete them without listening, but now I'm wondering if I should save them to show the police or something.
Wednesday was another email.
Today was another phone call (still blocked), and now I have another voicemail which I am suspecting is from her (it's the time of day she'd call). My phone didn't ring so it's possible to circumvent my blocking program. Unfortunately I can't get to it to check without going through the other two she left that I don't want to listen to but don't want to delete yet.
I didn't mean to put so much detail in, but maybe I did in case I need some record of it later.
The truth of the matter is that I was thinking that after I got some space maybe we could get to the root of the problem and rebuild our friendship, but if she can't respect my request for space and REFUSES to accept my request to stop repeat-dialing me (I believe the only reason she's not doing it right now is because she's starting to realize that my phone is automatically hanging up on her when she calls)... Well, that's not a friend, is it?
Once upon a time she was a good friend. Lately, though... Well, it's been going downhill, and I feel rather taken-for-granted. I also feel she is resentful of any time I spend with anyone else, especially since if I say no to her for something she really wants me to do with her she'll start digging in about "You going to your boyfriend's that day?" "You doing something with someone else?" "Why can't you come? Don't you like me anymore?"
No is no. It's nothing personal.
The part that puzzles me the most, though, is this is a woman who is very active in quite a few things. She doesn't work, so she does LOTS of things during the week. Why has she decided she needs to be so active in my life, not to mention so possessive of it? I'm not her only friend, either.
But I think that's one of those things I'm never really going to understand.
I just need to accept that she's not healthy for me anymore, especially since she's started in on the behaviors that XABF used to keep me feeling trapped in my relationship with him so long, and won't respect my requests to stop.
